cloudy

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I know it’s not obvious in this picture but I am loving life right here! LOL.

It’s true. The skies were moody and cloudy, I’m in my favorite place in the whole wide world and I have my airpods in listening to an audible book. What could be better?

Maybe a tripod… but meh.

I like the perspective though. It was another one of those, put your backpack down and hope that the image comes out well. At first I envisioned the dandelions to be as tall as the Washington Monument. When that didn’t work out, I just set my timer to see what it would look like if there was a human element in it. I liked it! So I started posing as if I didn’t know I was taking my own picture. LOL.

I remember I took this on a Sunday evening. I knew the sunset wasn’t going to be great, color wise, but I just wanted to get out there and go for a walk with my camera. It could have been the 4 slices of pizza I ate prior to the photowalk, but it was just so nice to be out in fresh air and doing what I love doing.

And PS Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone who has ordered Snap DC so far. I am LOVING all the pictures you’re sending and all the feedback. You seriously made my whole year already. I don’t know how long this is going to last for but Amazon actually dropped the price of the book. I had no idea that they were going to do that so the original price was $29.69 and now its on sale for $24.78. So if you haven’t already, I’d get your copy of the guide now.

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/320th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

This past weekend was absolutely amazing for so many reasons. But most of all it was for the photowalk that happened Saturday at the Tidal Basin. Thank you so much to IGDC for hosting. I had the time of my life! Thank you to my friends who came out but also the new ones I met that evening. The weather was cloudy, the water levels were extremely high (the highest I’ve ever seen), but it seemed like everyone came out with amazing pictures. So before I share some of my own, I wanted to highlight some of my favorites from the walk. If you’d like to see more of what everyone created, check out #igdcsnapdc on instagram.

There were so many great images to choose from but here are a few of my favorites:

The beginning of our walk started at the Jefferson Memorial and we were greeted by prom! I love the way you captured this, @ciarasandborg

@pootie_ting, the framing in this is incredible!

@jane_connors, I’m so glad you captured the heron under the cherry blossom trees. This turned out fantastic!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_5HH_Al5y/?taken-by=jane_connors

So many birds! But I love how they are framing the Jefferson Memorial. Stunning capture, @virginia.cheng

LOL talk about perfect timing, @mica4life. This makes me smile 🙂

The sky turned moody very quickly after sunset. This is so great, @dcrooks_us

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Blue hour #igdcsnapdc

A post shared by David Crooks (@dcrooks_us) on

And after the photowalk officially ended, the Washington Monument decided to light up the sky. This is AH-MAZING @zackowicz

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAmY4sAh1S/?taken-by=zackowicz

Thanks again for those who walked! I appreciate you spending your Saturday evening with me. I hope you had a great time but most importantly felt inspired to take more pictures around the National Mall.

Snap DC is officially released on Amazon. If you haven’t already, check it out. It’s available in paperback or kindle and I hope you love it!

 

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Out of the 7 days that we’ve been in San Diego, 6 of them have been foggy. It’s not foggy all day and it mostly comes around sunrise or sunset, the best times for taking pictures. I love the fog and everything but I thought I was coming to California for some sunshine.

But I am not letting any of the weather stop me from shooting. If I can’t photograph the skies, then I will try my best to photograph other things. This particular morning was not foggy but it was extremely cloudy. I found myself on the Ocean Beach pier just watching the waves go by. As the sun was rising higher in the sky, I noticed how beautiful it made the water look. I positioned myself on the pier so that I’d be shooting towards the shore and watching the back side of the wave roll by me.

My favorite part of this entire image is that little bit of light of aqua color on top of the wave. That was the color and light I was looking for while I was shooting this image. I don’t know but there’s something so fascinating about watching the waves roll by from up above. I love watching the patterns and repetition. Next time I need to bring the drone!

The surfer in the image was just an added bonus. I didn’t even realize he was there until I looked at these images on the computer. It’s pretty cool to see him in context to the wave. He looks so tiny compared to it.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/50th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens. I didn’t not shoot this with a tripod but was using the pier ledge to stabilize my camera.

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Even though this is technically a vacation, Andrew and I have brought everything we need to continue working while we’re on the west coast. We have our laptop computers and I have all my camera equipment so our work life can carry on as usual. I still plan on waking up everyday for sunrise, which is super easy considering I’m still on east coast time. But I’m even more excited for sunsets everyday. They should be phenomenal here on the west.

So when I heard that there was going to be a super moon on new year’s day, I couldn’t have been more excited to be able to capture it in California. The morning started off foggy, but as the day went on it seemed like the clouds were clearing for a beautiful moonrise. Of course, that all changed once I arrived to my location in Coronado. All the clouds came back! I was about to call it quits after 20 minutes of not seeing the moon. I figured the clouds were too thick to see anything but I’m so glad we stayed. I got a couple of images with the skyline and the moon but it wasn’t until we started heading back to the car where I found my inspiration. This is what makes me happy. Seeing a whole group of people doing what they love. Even on a holiday. Even when the conditions aren’t ideal, everyone was still happy to be out photographing the night’s sky.

The best part about capturing the super moon this time around was that it wasn’t freezing cold! I don’t know about you, but I always associate super moons with the cold. So here it is, a super moon shot that was captured without any gloves on 🙂 Afterwards we grabbed a pizza in Gas Lamp. Perfect way to end our New Years Day! (New Year’s diet? What’s that?)

My camera settings for this image is 1.6 seconds at F/4 and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and my 28-70mm lens.

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We had our very first snow fall of the season over the weekend! It was perfect. It snowed all day Saturday, just one or two inches. Enough to stick on cars and the grass a bit but nothing on the roads. No mess to clean up, no fuss to worry about. Just the way I like it!

My friend, Larry and I went out to Great Falls Park to check it out. It’s been a while since I’ve photographed the park and was really looking forward to shooting it in the snow. It reminded me of my high school days when I first got interested in photo. At that time, I didn’t know how to drive so my sweet mom drove me in the snow so I could get the shots that I wanted. And wait for me in the cold to photograph the trees and water. It’s crazy how things come full circle. I remember being really proud of those Great Falls shots in high school. LOL how time flies. I bet if you asked her today, she’d still remember doing that. SHOUT OUT TO MY MOM! I LOVE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOU! Even though you know I blog every day but still don’t read them.

I am really looking to photographing more snow this season. I heard we’re going to get a lot this year. I was sort of looking at this Great Falls Park photoshoot as the prequel. So many possibilities to shoot. And I’m really hoping for some drone shots thrown in there too! Let me know, what’s your favorite weather to shoot? Mine is fog but snow could be a close second. Similar effects but more cold.

The settings for this image is F4.5 at 4 seconds and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.

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Most of the time when I wake up for sunrise, I have no real plans of what I’m going to photograph. Especially now with daylight savings, I’ve been waking up earlier than my alarm and can’t fall back asleep. Theres really nothing else to do that early in the morning but to get ready and go take sunrise pictures.  I just figure out where I want to park my car and let my eyes be the guide. Most of the time that results in some of the best pics.

I took this image early last week. I spent most of the morning walking around Constitution Gardens. I always find myself going back there in the fall. I love the trees and reflections you can get from the water, but this day was a little rough. The sunrise wasn’t much to look at because it was so cloudy. The trees weren’t very colorful yet so I didn’t get much from the pond. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you loose some. I don’t get upset. It just happens.

So I decided to keep walking and I ended up by the Washington Monument. Luckily, there were some beautiful yellow trees along Constitution Ave. that I didn’t notice while I was driving. It was like the branches were reaching toward me screaming, “take my picture, take my picture”. I found a couple that perfectly framed the Washington Monument and played around with the composition. I think my favorite part of the image is seeing the branches themselves. I think it’s really interesting to follow each twist and turn and see where they end up.

What about you? I’d love to know what you like about the image.

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/400th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.